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11 Ways to Effectively Use Customer Feedback

From customer service to product delivery, informative customer data lies at the crux of customer satisfaction. Customer feedback is the most direct and dependable source of customer data because it represents their perception of your products/ services. Companies receive customer feedback from multiple sources – over the phone, in-person, emails, surveys, online forums and much more. The high proliferation of online media has made the customer feedback go viral. Airing a concern or opinion about a product is no longer a tedious task for the user. The world has gone social and so has customer feedback. This changing environment rapidly affects the way businesses need to handle and respond to feedback from clients.

Customer feedback analysis can provide essential information and through comprehensive feedback reports and graphical representations. But, integrating this information with CRM systems can greatly enhance customer satisfaction in the following key ways:

Measure customer satisfaction - CRM applications can save customer feedback over time to maintain records of customer satisfaction levels at different points of time. This helps build customer profiles and assess their experience with the product over the long term.

Store customer information - Customer feedback can also offer crucial information about the consumer, including contact details, preferences, like and dislikes which aid the CRM process. This allows a better analysis of feedback in context to customer's background.

Quick and accurate analysis - CRM applications are instrumental in analyzing customer data to offer quick and actionable solutions. This means customer complaints can be addressed with ease and speed for maximum customer satisfaction.

Quantify results - Most importantly, CRM applications offer a quantitative and qualitative value for customer satisfaction. This means that businesses can see in realistic terms how their product is being perceived and how this changes in the long run.

Pinpoint recurring issues - Regular feedback offers a wealth of information for a CRM application. One can isolate the topics or issues which are most frequently mentioned and focus on these. Managers can also get aggregate statistics on customer satisfaction levels vis-à-vis certain products, features, etc.

Quick turnaround time - Addressing feedback with immediate and practical solutions helps build a constant flow of communication with the customer which can help cement the relationship over time.

Enrich customer information - CRM applications provide data to various business processes to aid decision-making. Customer feedback can further enhance this data and help every business operation achieve a personal connect with the consumers to enhance their performance.

Co-create products and services - Collating feedback on products and services allows a close analysis of customer needs which facilitates optimization of products, services and campaigns.

Track feedback in real-time - Customers want to connect with their brands and they have the platform to do it today. As a business in today’s social landscape, it would be catastrophic to overlook this communication imperative with the customer. Companies must establish a technological structure whereby online customer feedback can be integrated with CRM systems to manage customer interactions - social CRM. This not only equips the different business processes with essential customer insights, but can also help track the user generated content about your product or brand.

Holistic view of multiple channels - Tracking the multiple communication channels established between a company and its customers today is essential. An effective CRM solution provides a centralized repository where all feedback is delivered in real-time for analysis and immediate escalations are generated for show-stoppers. Using these details specialized campaigns can be created for each channel or existing strategies can be redesigned.

Customized solutions - Managing customer feedback is not just about collecting it efficiently. It is crucial to respond effectively and efficiently while tracking these activities. This means offering actionable solutions, without delay. This can be achieved by channelling customer feedback to the concerned department(s) within the organization. An integrated CRM system will help assign the feedback based on its context to the right people so that a timely response or solution can be generated to address the customer.

We all realize that customer feedback is a vital source of data which can augment customer relationship management. Businesses should isolate the details and tone of customer feedback from multiple channels to improve perception and product offerings, thereby gaining a strategic competitive advantage. Turning this customer generated information into a vital resource for your business is the key advantage of an effective CRM software.